On the Street and in the Pews, East Harlem Mourns

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Worshipers praying during the Sunday service at Bethel Gospel Assembly in Harlem, where two of those killed in a gas explosion, which leveled two buildings, were members.CreditCreditDamon Winter/The New York Times

A Sunday morning in East Harlem means dressing up for church and buying flowers at the Associated supermarket on East 116th Street. It means stopping by the Dunkin’ Donuts down the block or maybe the tamale-and-atole stand on the corner of Lexington Avenue.

On the first Sunday after a gas explosion left two buildings in rubble and eight people dead, it was different. The tamales were still selling and the bakeries were still busy. But a barricade separated the Associated — and a mountain of debris — from the rest of 116th Street. The tamale vendor missed the regulars from Park Avenue who have decamped while their block is cleared of wreckage. And the churches rang not only with ordinary prayers, but also with solemn speeches, promises of help and devotions for the dead.

A service for the Spanish Christian Church, which occupied the first floor and basement of one of the destroyed buildings, was held with the Church of God on Third Avenue. It began with a moment of silence broken only by the gurgling of babies and the murmurs of children. “We’re in pain,” said Sister Carmen Vargas Rosa, speaking for other members of the 80-year-old Spanish Christian Church, which lost several congregants in the disaster. Her voice broke. “But we also know God is going to do something great.”

Outside St. Paul’s Roman Catholic Church on 117th Street, Nelson Henao, 54, a neighbor of George Amadeo, one of the victims, prepared to pray. “I pray not only for George, but everybody,” he said.

“The whole community does,” said Rosanne Hanton, 59, another churchgoer.

A few minutes after St. Paul’s 10:30 a.m. Mass began, a Red Cross worker slipped out the church’s doors and began fastening his face mask. “It’s pretty rough,” he said before turning to face the ruins once again.

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Investigators clearing debris from the explosion site on Park Avenue are making progress in uncovering the gas system, a Fire Department spokesman said.CreditVictor J. Blue for The New York Times

To this hurting neighborhood’s churches came a parade of dignitaries with offers of succor. Mayor Bill de Blasio, telling parishioners at the Church of God that “in this tragedy is an example to us all of the love that permeates this city,” promised permanent housing for those displaced by the explosion and pledged, in English and Spanish, that victims could expect help even if they were undocumented. “We don’t want your papers,” he said. “We just want to reach a helping hand.”

At the Bethel Gospel Assembly, a 1,300-member church on East 120th Street where two of the explosion’s victims were members, Mr. de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, announced that the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City, which she leads, had raised $250,000 for the victims of the explosion.

Carmen Tanco, 67, who died in the building collapse, was an usher at the church and helped serve breakfast there every Sunday morning. She often brought fresh fruit from home to make sure that the pastor and other church officials ate, said Ruth-Ann Wynter, Bethel’s director of ministry relations. Griselde Camacho, 44, who also died in the collapse, ran Bethel’s five-person projection team, overseeing an ever-changing slide show of announcements, photographs and prayers that accompanied each service.

“She called me her little sister,” said Essence Rodriguez, 25, who took Ms. Camacho’s place Sunday. “We are all really affected by this,” she said, tears falling below her red spectacles.

Many of the victims were members of the Spanish Christian Church and lived in apartments above the church’s storefront at 1644 Park Avenue. On Saturday, firefighters sifting through the blackened rubble turned up a treasure so surprising that the church’s 83-year-old pastor, the Rev. Thomas Perez, was overcome: a Bible, dusty and crumpled but intact.

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Liseth Perez, whose husband, Andreas Panagopoulus, was killed after a gas explosion caused two buildings to collapse in East Harlem, speaks to members of the media outside the Farenga Funeral Home in Astoria, Queens.CreditRobert Stolarik for The New York Times

Mr. Perez, who has often stood vigil over the debris of his church this week, was admitted in the hospital on Saturday. But on his behalf, his assistant pastor, Santos Mercado, accepted a new Bible with an Italian leather binding from the Church of God’s pastor, Hector Chiesa.

Outside a diner on 116th Street, the Rev. Wilfredo T. Laboy, the national vice president of the Latino Pastoral Action Center, spoke of belonging to the Spanish Christian Church when he was 10 years old and the church counted more than 150 members. Now he was back in town in part to help its leaders start over.

“It’s pretty tragic and painful for the community,” he said. “But I think they’ll come back. It’s a long history there.”

Down the block, Kathy Jacinto was giving her spicy chicken tamales away to any of her displaced regulars from nearby Park Avenue who might stop by to say hello and lament their shuttered apartments.

“They worry, because they don’t know if they’re going to be able to come back,” said Ms. Jacinto, 26, ladling servings of atole, the steaming sweet corn-based drink, into blue cups.

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Mr. de Blasio remembered the lives of parishioners who died in the blast last week.CreditOzier Muhammad/The New York Times

A Consolidated Edison spokesman, Michael Clendenin, said that gas would most likely be restored shortly to three buildings on East 116th Street. Another building, 1642 Park, is expected to remain unoccupied for the near future. On Sunday, a Fire Department spokesman, James Long, said investigators were making progress in reaching the meters and the other elements of the gas system in the building where the explosion is believed to have originated.

On Sunday evening in Astoria, Queens, a wake was held for one of the dead, Andreas Panagopoulos.

Outside the Farenga Funeral Home on Ditmars Boulevard, his widow, Liseth Perez, spoke of the man she adored, the man who told her every morning how beautiful she was.

“Every death hurts, but this was so unexpected. So tragic,” she said. “They took my love. They took the man that I spent the last 13 years of my life with.”

Other memorials and funerals were still being arranged, with some burials to take place in the victims’ home countries, Mr. Chiesa said. The name of one of the eight victims, a 34-year-old woman, still has not been released as authorities await identification by family.

In East Harlem, as much as the routines of Sunday continued, it was the missing faces that stood out the most.

“They were on the streets,” said Maria Dominguez, 52, a member of the Church of God whose husband taught Bible study at the Spanish Christian Church. “You knew their faces.”